An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

Their very joys do become like wine to men in a fever, though refreshing a little, yet inflaming and increasing the disease more. So that these worldly joys, being not universal, nor pure and unmixed; yea being the seed of eternal grief and torment, therefore they may be well excluded from the name of joy, and the Doctrine be truly asserted, That God is a God of consolation only to believers.

Their very joyes do become like wine to men in a feavor, though refreshing a little, yet inflaming and increasing the disease more. So that these worldly joys, being not universal, nor pure and unmixed; yea being the seed of eternal grief and torment, therefore they may be well excluded from the name of joy, and the Doctrine be truly asserted, That God is a God of consolation onely to believers.

Let us explicate this truth. And

First, We are to know, That God doth not only vouchsafe grace, but comfort also and delight to his people, in the exercise of those graces. He doth not only give bread that strengthens, but wine that makes the heart glad. Grace, that carrieth us out to honour God, to love him, and live to him; but comfort, that is for our encouragement, that is to sweeten and facilitate the heart in doing so. So that if a man have never so much grace and holiness, yet if he want this consolation, as you see it was with Job, with Jeremiah, with David, when Psal. 51. he prayed so earnestly for the restoring of it again to him, all his desirable things perish. Christ himself under those agonies he conflicted with, had an Angel to comfort him. So that you see they are two distinct gifts of God; to give Grace, and to give comfort; therefore the holy Ghost hath a two-fold work, both to sanctify, and also to comfort; yet though distinct, God doth many times join them together; yea there is some unusual impediment, if joy doth not always follow grace, and that like Castor and Pollux, they do not always appear together. Therefore Godliness is comprehended under the name of gladness in that expression, Ps. l. 45. 7. applied to Christ,